"I've been travelin' on this road too long..."

I wanted to write this blog on January 1st, but couldn't because it slipped out of my mind. I have long prided myself on being a vulnerable and authentic. I have been neither for awhile.

My friends Lent sermon reawoke those sentiments. Except with this time even more urgency for change.

I am a "hiccup".

I am a sinner. My life is a mess right now.

The only thing I was semi-devoting myself too was my work and I do that half-heartedly now. I get to work late or right at the very last second everyday. It's not a big deal because my paraprofessionals are able to get my students off the buses and too breakfast, but I feel like I'm wearing off that nicetie.

It really sucks. My students are my calling. I don't see myself ever working in a church or in a ministry or parachurch organization. My classroom is my pulpit. My children and their poor families are my congregation. I am the defender of my flock. Yet at the same time I am being negligent of my students needs, I also feel like I am not doing enough for them ever. It's a never ending internal struggle.

I haven't made time for my friends. Work and graduate classes have consumed my life. If I'm not planning something for my classroom, I'm reading or working on a graduate class assignment. If I make free time, I feel guilty, so I don't. So I haven't invested anything besides surface-level time in my friendships and they have all for the most part suffered. I mean when you find out about your best friend and his wife being pregnant at the same time as everybody else, something sucks with that situation.

I feel like all of my friends are moving forward with awesome stuff in their spiritual lives, while I've forgotten about awesome stuff and am just standing still and falling behind.

The worst has been that my personal demons have caught up with me. They finally bled into my relationship with my girlfriend. The only being who physically exists on this planet, loves me, and she does that knowing all the garbage in my soul. However, my recent actions caused her a lot of pain and doubt. She was about five seconds from breaking up with me because she didn't think she could trust me anymore.

I know I have sucked as a brother, a friend, a student, a teacher, a Christian, a dog owner. I just didn't think I would suck as her boyfriend.

All of this has been weighing on me so heavily. I am so exhausted as a human being right now. But to think about hurting my girl like that was like eating shards of glass. Excruciatingly painful.

Of course my kneejerk reaction was wanting to avoid the conflict and not own up to my responsibilities. I would rather run a lifetime to avoid conflict in relationships.

Seeing her hurt so much by my actions has made me feel like Robert the Bruce in Braveheart:

"Robert the Bruce: I have nothing. Men fight for me because if they do not, I throw them off my land and I starve their wives and children. Those men who bled the ground red at Falkirk fought for William Wallace. He fights for something that I never had. And I took it from him, when I betrayed him. I saw it in his face on the battlefield and it's tearing me apart!

Robert's Father: All men betray. All lose heart.

Robert the Bruce: I don't want to lose heart. I want to believe as he does!"

I don't want Lynette to "lose heart" in me. I've gotta do the easy thing and turn back to God, because without some help from Him I'm doomed to fail.

"The old me is dead and gone, dead and gone..."